


so hellish love shall outdo heavenly hate

by tansypool



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Affair, regrettable decisions at parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:00:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22543684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansypool/pseuds/tansypool
Summary: They move in the same circles after, and it's inevitable that their paths will cross.Marisa and Asriel, some years after their affair.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 28
Kudos: 87





	1. to love vice for itself

**Author's Note:**

> I think I just wanted to see if I could do this. But also, Effie, you know what you did.

Asriel loathes these parties - too many people that he doesn’t know and that he doesn’t need to, and too few people for him to make a hasty retreat. The tokaj is barely drinkable, but still a better option than anything else on offer, and Stelmaria’s ice-cool facade is barely paper-thin.

And then he sees _her_ across the room, and feels his blood run hot and cold all at once.

The first thing he notices is that her hair is shorter. Just past her shoulders, the curls not as loose as he remembers them, though he can’t help but picture her hair spread across his pillow. Still plenty long enough to weave his fingers through, to pull her head back as she becomes pliant at his touch, and he feels Stelmaria growl softly at his side.

Not the thoughts either of them needs to be having right now - not the memories. As far as anyone is concerned, she may as well be dead to him, the reason that his life shattered around him, leaving him with nothing but his name and the lingering stain of blood. As far as he’s concerned, she may as well not exist.

But she does. In front of him. Mere yards away, in a red silk dress surely chosen to draw every eye in the room, the neckline cut deep enough that he can’t pull his eyes away, until he feels the burn of her stare - and nothing else on her face to give either of them away, save for the slightest twitch of her jaw, the only lingering trace of a self-satisfied smirk that he knows she is hiding, something he only sees because he knows to look for it.

And that’s all there is. Their eyes lock, and break apart, and they go back to their blissful ignorance of the other, and he replaces his tokaj with whiskey, and then another three, letting them cloud him into a haze, letting him try to forget that he ever saw her.

The whiskeys in such quick succession replace the all-encompassing stress of that moment with an equally all-encompassing fog in his mind, and he doesn’t quite know how much time has passed before he quietly walks away from yet another tedious conversation, and hides himself in a deserted hallway, where the heat of the fireplaces doesn’t quite reach, and the cool wintry air still lingers. He lets the time swirl away - the cold air bringing him somewhat back to reality, alongside the silence between him and the snow leopard by his feet.

He’s counting flowers in the ceiling moulding to bring him back to reality just enough to walk out of the building when he hears stiletto heels against the tile - he lets an irritated huff escape him unimpeded, not daring to look at the source of the sound. He doesn’t need to look to know who it is. He knows her too well, right down to the rhythm of her steps, to the way she can always find him in the worst possible moments, to ruin his evening in the same way she ruined his life without even hesitating, who would do so again with equally little resistance.

She doesn’t say a word as she steps closer, and he doesn’t give her the satisfaction of looking at her, and it isn’t until she’s so close that he can’t ignore her any more that he looks her in the eye, as the scent of her perfume and the intensity of her stare make his head spin in a way that the whiskey never could.

“You’re avoiding me.” She murmurs it, her tone teasing, close enough that he can feel her breath as she speaks, so quiet that not even their dæmons could hear it, but their dæmons are just as close to each other, just as fixed in the looming battle of who will fall first.

“And yet, Marisa, you’re following me.” He lets her name linger on his tongue, draws it out in a way that nobody present at the party would ever dare, but he keeps his hands fixed in his pockets, his fingers toying at the fabric to keep them from wandering elsewhere.

At that, she smirks, her eyes wandering, flickering between his eyes and his lips, and he can feel his breaths growing short - all he can do is hate her for it, hate her for how easily she can elicit this reaction from him. “You can’t run away entirely unnoticed.”

He can’t fathom how she’s somehow even closer, their noses almost touching, but suddenly, it’s nothing to close the distance between them, and he can’t even tell who moved first, only that they moved at all.

He can taste the wine on her tongue, and his head spins, spins at the way she moves against him, at the way her arms come to rest on his shoulders, holding him closer, as though the years between them never were. His hands come to rest on her waist, and he can’t keep them still, letting them wander, losing himself in the feeling of her in his arms. He breaks the kiss - hears the slightest gasp of protest escape her lips, before he’s kissing slowly along her jaw, her pulse, her neck, one hand reaching up to brush against her breast, and he feels her whole body shiver, and he doubts that it’s from the cold.

She’s all but frozen in place, her arms still locked around his neck, her fingers gripping in his hair, as he presses his lips, his teeth, his tongue against the tendon of her neck, but as the touch of his teeth becomes a bite, enough to leave a mark, she gasps something that is almost a moan, and pulls his head back, pulls him back into a kiss, brutal and harsh, her teeth clashing against his. One hand is still entangled in his hair, the other tugging at his tie, pulling the knot loose, pulling at the buttons. At the loss of her hands holding him close, he reaches up, tries to pull her back to him, a hand between her shoulder blades, a hand at her waist. He feels her grin, feels her hands wandering to his belt, and he can’t help the noise coming from deep within his throat, his hips rocking against her touch.

He’s still holding her close, with hands that he can barely keep in place, he can’t help but thrust against her hand, and she’s still so close, her tongue still against his.

And then, nothing. All at once, she breaks the kiss, she steps away, every point of contact broken. Her monkey springs away from Stelmaria, their dæmons having been just as closely entangled as they were.

She glances at him, eyes grazing over his face and body and back again, a wide, smug grin stretching across her face before she meets his eyes again. He knows what he must look like - his hair mussed, lipstick smeared across his face - but all he can do is slump back against the wall, his heart still racing.

He can barely concentrate on what she’s saying, barely think beyond the blue disappearing behind black in her eyes, beyond her breath still on his lips, as shallow and erratic as his own. But still, he listens, through the fog of lust and whiskey in his mind.

“You’re just as easily distracted as ever, then.” Her eyes wander down him again as she says it, and he feels his pulse quicken, feels blood pool exactly where it doesn’t need to. She’s shifting on her heels, shifting away from him, and the air around him is growing cool again, against the heat of his body, against the lingering heat of where her body just was.

“Frigid bitch.” It’s all he can muster, but his eyes are still on her lips, the way they’re still slightly parted, her lipstick smudged. Her breath is still erratic, and he lets his gaze linger on the rise and fall of her chest, making no secret of it. “Makes a bit of a change for you.”

At that, she glares slightly, and he’s sure that she wants to slap him, but instead, she watches him, her eyes dark, the smug grin still as present as ever despite the glare. He can’t do anything but watch her as she steps closer, and as soon as she kisses him, he leans into it, lets something guttural escape from deep in his throat as her hand reaches into his trousers, still left undone by her hand, and then--

Nothing but cool air, another bloody smirk, and the sound of her heels against tile as she walks away without another word.


	2. in lust they burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another party, another night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My self-imposed deadline didn't go so well, but in my defence, life sure came at us all fast there. Hope you're all staying safe and staying healthy.

Marisa wishes she could be anywhere else right now. There’s a sick irony to, of all places, the Royal Arctic Institute running hot, the heat of its fireplaces still lingering in spite of the summer heat that has descended on London, glasses of wine sweating in the warmth, as the scholars holding them, still stubbornly wearing woollen suits, sweat just as much. She’s glad that she did, at least, think to wear her hair up, to choose a dress that stops at her knees and leaves her arms bare, though it’s a small mercy.

Her wine is running far too sweet - a gewürztraminer that’s somehow still the best of the options available, and she wishes, not for the first time, that the Institute could at least be a little consistent in its choices of wine, rather than sticking to the tastes of whichever sponsor gave them the most money the most recently, any other reasoning be damned. She doesn’t even need to be there - she could walk out now, and her absence would be noted, but she wouldn’t be missed, and she would miss nothing. The conversations are all blurring into one, endless and dreary and pointless, nothing to be gained from them.

And then she sees _him_ across the room, and feels her blood run hot and cold all at once.

Asriel’s dedication to decorum is as evident as ever, with his suitcoat long gone, his tie loose, his sleeves rolled up, gesticulating with his glass. He thus somehow manages to be one of the few men in the room not looking entirely at unease with the warmth - though, as he neither hails from the Arctic, nor spends his life behind a desk, it’s hardly a surprise. She can’t remember the last time she saw him with so much facial hair, his indecision regarding a beard having clearly not changed since she last saw him.

He looks utterly dishevelled, and she can’t keep her eyes off of him.

She knows he’s watching her as much as she’s watching him - her monkey has been doing nothing but keeping a furtive eye on his snow leopard, rigid with tension, wanting nothing more than to step forward to her, wanting nothing more than to run away. The last time she saw Asriel, Marisa thinks, she should have run away.

The gewürztraminer is still sickly and not quite strong enough, but it’s a better alternative to letting herself think about _him,_ and if she drinks it fast enough, it doesn’t grow warm, and so she doesn’t let it.

It’s at the end of her second glass that he catches her eye - she doesn’t give anything away, but she finishes the last dregs, leaves the glass on the first flat surface she sees, and strides out of the room, the din concentrated to the ballroom, and the labyrinth of hallways blissfully quieter, blissfully lacking the intense heat of the room, the cool air bringing her back from feeling as though she’s sinking in the heat.

For once, she’s glad that he can still read her so easily - at a glance, he knows what she wants from him, and within moments, he’s the only other person near her, the two of them alone, the hallway otherwise abandoned, yet he stands so close to her that she can feel the heat from his body radiating against her. It’s the last thing she wants right now, but she doesn’t quite want to step away.

“Miss me that much, did you?” He’s smug, far too smug, and far too close, and it makes her whole body run hot with rage and lust all at once.

"I can't imagine what it is that you get out of staring at me the whole evening," she snaps at him, staring into his eyes.

"Because you're definitely not staring, either." Still far too smug, still far too close, still far too much for her to step away.

"You look like you've crawled in off the street." She glances down - his arms are crossed, but she can tell that his shirt hasn't been ironed, and she wonders what he bothers employing a manservant for. "You'd do well to at least _pretend_ to make an effort."

“I’m here, that’s effort enough.”

All she can do is scoff, but then her words die on her tongue as she sees something moving, just on the edge of her vision - a figure crosses the far end of the hallway, just visible over Asriel’s shoulder, and disappears again, but it’s enough of a reminder that she doesn’t want to be seen with him at all.

She knows she should just cut it off there - walk away again, leave him smug, but leave him. Instead, she murmurs, “We’re not finishing this out here.” She doesn’t need the inevitable whispers if she’s seen alone with him, and she knows all too well that whatever whispers started, twice as many would follow her as would follow him.

A glance to her left and she sees that they’re a few metres away from an office - she vaguely recognises the name, a professor currently spending his holiday studying the summer habits of some migratory bird or other, a topic Marisa had lost interest in as soon as she had known it existed. All she knows is that his office will be empty, the fireplaces left long cold since his departure, and that’s all she needs to know.

The door is mercifully unlocked, the room cool and dark and empty, everything neat and filed away, as it is kept by any researcher hoping to keep his office on the premises. The prestige of a room in the Royal Arctic Institute is in its location, not in the room itself, with very few having half the space Marisa would consider adequate. She can’t help but think that as Asriel follows her in - so close that their dæmons have no choice but to weave in at their ankles, and Marisa could almost swear that she felt the brush of his snow leopard’s tail against her leg, light enough that it could have been an accident, were it not something she’d entirely expect of them, and she feels her heart race, the cool air of the long-deserted room almost impossible to ignore against the sudden, prickling heat of her skin.

He doesn’t back away as the door closes behind her - rather, he steps closer, and her back is against the door before she realises quite how close he is. He still smells the same - just enough of his cologne to be noticeable, and the scent of him that she knows too well, knows from too many nights falling asleep in his arms. But all she can do is grit her teeth and ignore it. They’re both hanging on to their control of this far too tenuously for her to be able to do anything beyond maintain the little that she has.

“I don’t have to be here,” she smirks, staring into Asriel’s eyes, not letting him look away. “Some of us don’t have to beg for everything.”

“They why are you here, Marisa?” His tone, his volume, they still match hers, and he doesn’t look away, doesn’t back away. There’s barely any space between them at all, the heat radiating from him in sharp contrast to the blissful cool air of the office long abandoned.

“It’s company worth keeping. Favours owed, rumours that need quelling.” She smiles at him, tilts her head, watches his eyes fall to her lips.

“And here I was, thinking you might actually be doing something worth the while, rather than just gossip mongering.” His gaze is flickering rapidly between her eyes and her lips, and she tries to ignore it, but it’s worth it when she licks her lips, and his breathing falters, his next words just that slightest bit less confident. “Seems like a waste of your time, really.”

She raises an eyebrow, incredulous, giving no indication that she even noticed the change in his tone, as she tries to keep her own breath even. “Less of a waste than it is of yours. Or do you get something out of putting everybody in the room off by coming in straight from the street?”

But his eyes are still on her lips, and she sees him smirk, and at that, she knows that he’s no longer listening, and she knows that she no longer cares what she’s saying. All she wants to do is close what’s left of the distance between them, and so she does, feeling his lips freeze against hers for the briefest moment before he kisses her back.

There’s little left of her resolve, and she can feel it fading fast, as she lifts her arms around his neck to pull him closer, as his hands rest on her waist, as the world fades away into nothing but the two of them.

A part of her knows that she shouldn’t, that she should push him away, pretend that she did nothing but see him in passing, pretend that their paths crossed and diverted just as quickly. But his lips are on hers, on her neck, on her pulse, and she can’t think of anything else. The moments stretch out, endless, and all she wants is to stay in that moment, so inextricably close to each other, in each other's arms as though they still belong there.

And then he stops - breathless, still grasping at her waist, their noses brushing. She could push him away now, she _should_ push him away, leave him alone, fix her makeup, brush it off as another brief moment of weakness that she can push out of her mind.

Instead, she reaches for his tie, pulling it over his head and flinging it away, before pulling him close by his shirt and kissing him again.

He doesn’t hold back, and neither does she, her fingers desperately trying to undo the buttons of his shirt - she manages two, before he leans away from her for just long enough to take his shirt off and drop it, clearly as patient as she is. She doesn’t bother to hide it as she lets her eyes wander over him, over the muscles in his chest and his shoulders, but she can barely do so for longer than a second before he steps closer to her again, both of his hands on her face, pulling her close, and it’s his lips and his tongue and his teeth in a dizzying haze before he moves back to her pulse, kissing and sucking and biting at a point on her neck that leaves her legs weak, and she knows it will leave a mark, but she can’t bring herself to care.

He kisses his way from her neck, across her jaw, to her lips again, and it’s all too easy to slip from that kiss into her teeth against his bottom lip - she feels his stifled gasp, and then the softest, slightest moan as she kisses him again, their frantic pace dropping ever so briefly into something more languid. Still, all she can do is cling to him as he kisses her breathless, one hand against his chest, the other against his back, her nails digging into his skin and holding him close.

Her head is spinning, and so she lets it drop against the door behind her. Still, he follows her, for the briefest second, not letting there be any distance between them at all, before he breaks away to watch her, his expression almost wild, his hair messy and an unmistakable hunger in his eyes. She can see the grin spreading across his face, far too smug, but she can’t stop herself from mirroring the expression as she feels his hands at her skirt, as she feels him pushing the silk to her hips with no particular finesse or care.

There’s a split second in which all she can do is hold him, her nails still clawing at his back, before his fingers are brushing at her inner thigh, before they’re pushing aside her underwear, and all she can do is bury her face in his neck to stifle the moan she can’t stop herself from making at the first thrust of his fingers, merciless and fast and deep.

He still knows her too well. Still knows how to make her fall apart, as quickly or as slowly as he wants, the rhythm of his fingers and the stroke of his thumb making her legs weak, as she clings to him, rocking her hips against him.

She doesn’t quite notice as she wraps her leg around his hips, his fingers thrusting deeper, her balance entirely relying on him. All she can do is cling to him, desperately keeping herself as close to his body as she can. And his lips are on hers again, but she can barely respond before she feels his fingers curl, and her jaw stutters against his, her moans close and quiet and uncontrolled, uncontrollable, as she comes, her head spinning, her heart racing.

He’s far, _far_ too smug when she opens her eyes again, her breath still shallow and her pulse still rapid, vaguely aware of his breath matching hers in shallowness, acutely aware of his hand against her hip, acutely aware of the heat and the wetness between her thighs. She tries to balance without him, on her own two feet again, but he’s still so close that there isn’t any need to.

There’s still that quiet voice in the back of her head, telling her to back away, but the time for that has long passed. Her dæmon is still intertwined with his, and she is still intertwined with him, and it’s nothing to pull him closer again, into an open-mouthed kiss with clashing tongues and teeth, his desperation and arousal evident enough to make her smile into the kiss.

He doesn’t resist as she pushes away from the door, as she pushes herself into him, forcing him across the room, her nails scratching against his chest as she breaks the kiss to look him in the eye with a smirk. She’s not quite watching where she’s leading him, too focused on him to care, and she feels him stumble against the desk - a heavy dark wood, which stays solidly in place as he leans against it, an expression across his face that she knows would be smug, were it not for the lust that leaves his breath shallow and his eyes dark. But she doesn’t push him any farther, not yet, leaving him leaning against the desk, her fingers trailing feather-light against his chest.

"I could just leave you here, you know." She ignores the rasp in her throat as she reaches down, finding him just as hard as she expected, and gives the lightest touch she can, enough to make him bite the inside of his cheek and breathe in sharply. She knows that she isn’t going anywhere - any doubt, any questions in her mind, are long gone - but she knows exactly how to elicit the desperation she wants from him.

And she does, her touch still light as she unfastens his trousers, his soft murmur of _"Marisa"_ verging on a growl as his eyes fix on hers, dark and piercing.

He leans in to her, kisses her and guides her mouth open with his, but she doesn’t close her eyes, doesn’t let him decide the motion, the speed. With her hand against his chest, she pushes him gently, and he steps back, his focus still fixed on her and his movement entirely under her control, as she guides him towards the chair behind the desk. The backs of his knees knock against the chair, and it doesn’t shift - it’s nothing, nothing at all, for her fingers to tap feather-light against his chest, for him to drop almost uncontrolled into the chair, for him to pull her down with him. His hands are on her waist, holding her close, and his grip is firm against her as she straddles him, her hips against his, and her head spins again as she grinds her hips down, his cock hard against her even through layers of fabric.

His hands are still on her waist, even as he pulls her against him, the roll of her hips barely possible against the force of his grip. She leans into him, close enough to brush her nose against his, but not closer - instead, he leans in to her, reaching up and pulling her into a kiss with a clash of teeth, before he bites against her lip, and she’s barely aware of the soft _oh_ that escapes her until she hears him laugh, though it’s little more than a self-satisfied exhalation before she twists herself towards him, so as to kiss along his jaw and to his pulse, trailing the last traces of her lipstick against his skin.

At that, his hands are wandering under her skirt, his fingers toying at her underwear again, and she lets him have that brief moment, of his fingers dipping insistently under the lace and against her, inside her, and she is acutely aware of how hot and how wet she is. But this isn’t why she’s still here, straddling him, and if she lets him keep going, she won’t let him stop.

They don’t have all night. She doubts they would be much missed, but there’s no need to invite questions.

And so she murmurs - _tries_ to murmur - against his pulse, against his ear, the lobe brushing against her lips, a soft, “Stop,” but she barely rasps it out. It takes trying to say it twice before he hears - his fingers grow still against her as soon as he does, and all she can hear is their breath, both as frenetic as each other’s. All she can feel is every nerve in her, hyperaware, of every touch of his hands, of the fabric of his trousers against her bare skin.

He doesn’t stop watching her as she climbs out of his lap, as she leans against the desk, her hands firm against the wood just to keep herself steady. His eyes are dark, his lips parted, her lipstick smeared across his face, more of it on his than she is sure is left on her own, and she finds herself staring at him, for just a second too long.

“So you’re just going to leave me like this, are you?” His voice catches in his throat, his breath heavy.

“I could.” She smirks at him - half naked, with trousers undone, messy and sweaty and aroused - and knows full well that she could leave him, but it’s the last thing on her mind.

“Quite the state to be left in by the Magisterium’s whore.” He matches her smirk, and she should slap him for it, but instead, she stays standing, keeps her expression frozen. None of his smirk is quite reaching his eyes, and she knows that none of hers is either.

“You’re in no state to judge.” Still stock-still, still staring, still with the twisted smile, that he doesn’t even seem to notice, his eyes fixed on the neckline of her dress, before gazing down and flicking over every inch of her. “And it’s still far more than anything else you’ll get out of being here tonight.”

She lets him stare, brow furrowing slightly - she could tease him, draw it out, make him suffer, but instead, she waits until he meets her stare again, and doesn’t break it, as she kicks her shoes off, as she peels her underwear down her thighs and lets them drop to the floor.

He’s still watching her, and doesn’t immediately move to meet her as she steps back towards him, as she kneels in front of him. Still no movement as she leans in, kissing him lightly against his sternum, slowly working her way down his stomach in glancing brushes of her lips, before she hooks her fingers into his waistband. He lifts his hips as she draws his trousers down his thighs, leaving him bare, and she presses another kiss against the inside of his thigh, so light as to barely be there at all.

She can hear his breath quicken as she trails barely-there kisses up the inside of his thigh, and she can see his hand twitch, on the edge of her vision - he knows that all he wants to do is grab her, to guide her mouth to exactly where he wants it. But he also knows her too well to try, and knows full well that he has lost all control of that moment.

She doesn’t want to let up - it’s almost funny, watching him have to try so damn hard to keep his hands to himself. But she’s growing impatient despite herself, and as she stands, she can hear a growl from somewhere deep within his throat.

Whatever words were on his tongue, she swallows, his mouth frozen against her for the briefest second as she leans to kiss him, before straddling him, barely pausing to find even her balance before his hands are on her hips, under her dress, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and her eyes flutter shut at the thrust of his cock inside her.

There’s a long-repressed familiarity to it - the way he fits between her thighs, inside her, the rhythm of his first few thrusts, the ease with which they find a pace. His lips are on hers, his tongue against hers, his hand against her jaw, nudging her mouth open, just that bit further, the taste of him and the feel of him consuming her, and there is nothing, nothing but them. She can feel already that her thighs will be sore in the morning, but she can’t quite bring herself to care, because it’s his hands that are guiding every roll of her hips, every thrust - or it is every roll of her hips that is guiding his hands, synchronised as though they were never apart.

His lips are slowly moving away from hers - pressing open-mouthed kisses along her jaw, and to her neck, to a point along a tendon that he knows just how to draw his teeth over to make her pliant against him. She leans into his touch, her arms bracing against his chest, as she moans into his ear, short and sharp and panting, trying to match those moans against the rhythm of her hips, the thrusts just as short and frenetic, and she brings her arms up, to lean them against his shoulders, around his neck.

He leans against her, his mouth all but on her ear, and by the sharp way he breathes, she knows that he wants to say something, but she doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t need to hear a word. A soft _shh,_ and the words die on his tongue, and she sits the slightest bit straighter, to look him in the eye, as steadily as she can when every thrust is coursing through her. A fleeting kiss, enough that he barely responds, and another soft _shh_ , a hair’s breadth from him, before she kisses him again, a split second longer. Another _shh_ , and it disappears entirely as it leaves her lips, as she kisses him, and doesn’t stop.

His hands are grasping at her, at her back, at her hips, groping and grabbing and holding her close, and she can barely pay attention, every nerve on fire at his every touch. His hands, on her thighs again, fingertips again digging in hard enough to bruise - she can’t help but hope that it does. She tries to reach her legs out, to hook them onto _something_ , the back of the chair, anything that will pull him closer, to feel him deeper inside her.

One of his hands moves from its death grip on her thigh to between her legs again, the touch of his fingertips sending jolts through her, and she pulls his face closer to her own, the open-mouthed kiss turning swiftly to desperate, uncontrolled breaths and moans against each other’s mouths, his eyes fluttering shut, her hips rocking a senseless staccato against his. No finesse, just sheer lust, sheer desperation from them both, and everything around them is gone, all she can see, feel, taste, is him, time vanishing alongside everything else.

It’s with a final thrust and a moan from deep within him that he comes, all the while his fingers stroking desperately at her, and it’s with that thrust that she comes too, seconds later, running through her from her core as something almost guttural escapes her mouth, leaving her limbs loose and her pulse racing in the sudden stillness, the sudden peace.

She doesn’t immediately pull away - instead, she leans into his chest, letting her forehead rest against his neck as she gasps her way back to some sort of groundedness. His breath is deep, and ragged, and she feels him almost mirror her, leaning his head against hers before she feels a kiss with parted lips where her neck meets her shoulder.

He’s still holding her close. Not with the last lingering frantic desperation - but almost gentle, as though he hadn’t been desperately fucking her a moment ago, as though he wasn’t still inside her. As though he had done nothing but hold her.

Her heartbeat is still thundering, her skin beginning to cool, but his chest is still warm where she leans against him, her body moving with the rhythm of his breath.

He doesn’t say anything - his nose brushes against her jaw, and then his lips are tracing the same path, until she turns to kiss him, her whole body against his, leaning in close, held tight. There’s nothing frantic, no rush at all, just his lips, soft against hers, and she knows that she could so easily lose more time than she already has in his arms, just as she knows from his touch that he could just as easily lose that same time in her embrace.

But they cannot.

She is the one to break the kiss - with her hands against his chest, because she knows he’ll try to follow as she stands. But he doesn’t, his body instead going slack against the chair, his chest is still rising and falling rapidly with his still-shallow breath, and his eyes are still on her.

She glances at him briefly before turning away - finding her underwear, her shoes, trying to redress herself and to smooth her dress with some sort of dignity, hoping that the inevitable creases don’t show in the gold fabric. Ignoring his gaze, ignoring their dæmons still in an embrace they’re yet to break, trying to bring herself back to the reality where she doesn’t fall prey to her emotions at the slightest touch.

There’s the sound of movement behind her as she steps towards the door, of a belt being fastened and of Asriel standing, but she doesn’t turn to look, refuses to let herself. She doesn’t let herself do anything but try to slow her breathing and will her monkey to her side as she reaches for the doorknob.

And then, inches away, “Marisa.”

And she can’t help but turn to face him - but he’s not leaning in, not anywhere so close as that, the few inches between them feeling almost impassable. He’s half dressed again, his shirt back on, wrinkled and half unbuttoned, but on. He doesn’t say anything more as he looks at her, but she can feel her lips part as she stares at him, as her pulse begins to quicken again.

He isn’t even touching her until he brings his hand up, resting against her jaw and lifting her chin slightly, and his thumb brushes against the corner of her lip, as he wipes away what she supposes to be a lingering smudge of lipstick, leaving his hand for a split second longer than necessary before letting it fall.

At the loss of his touch, she opens the door, leaving him alone, before she has a chance to do anything else. And then she is alone in an empty hallway, trying to smooth her skirt enough that she can find a powder room without feeling as though all eyes will be on her. She’s far too aware of the ache already beginning in her muscles, far too aware of the scent of sex and sin clinging to her skin, of the stickiness against her thighs, impossible to ignore.

She’s left mercifully alone in the hallways, in the powder room, nothing but the reproachful glare of her monkey for company as she tries to fix what’s left of her makeup with nothing to hand, tries to smooth her hair back into something presentable. There’s only so much she can do, though, and all she can hope is that the endless crowd of blank-faced scholars are all too drunk on the revolting wines to notice, or to care.

Another glass of something she can barely taste is in her hand before she steps back into the cloyingly warm ballroom, a vacantly pleasant expression on her face, her stomach roiling at the scenarios spinning in the back of her mind, but it’s nothing to step back into a conversation, to brush off her absence as a need to escape the heat. There is still quite a crowd - enough people there that they weren’t missed, no odd glances, no suspicious words. They may as well have never been gone.

She doesn’t quite know how much later it is when she sees him watching her, a glass of whiskey in his hand going all but ignored, his snow leopard tense at his side. She sees him, and stares straight through him, looking away before he has a chance to notice that she saw him at all.


End file.
